


the crime deserves the punishment

by nubbins_for_all



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: AND CHECK THE TRIGGER WARNING, But seriously BE WARNED FOR INTENSE STUFF IN THIS, CW/TW: description of rape/sexual assault, F/M, Hurt/Comfort, Jaime is the Leetle Spoon, Smut, and also lest we forget, because he's stupid but he's not that stupid, but diverging from canon pretty much after the Bang That Was Promised, post 8x04, things mostly shook out the same except Jaime kept his ass put
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-11
Updated: 2019-11-11
Packaged: 2021-01-27 18:17:25
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 11,713
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21396562
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nubbins_for_all/pseuds/nubbins_for_all
Summary: “Stand down, Ser Jaime,” she growls, and his hand automatically tightens on the hilt of his sword,how dare she, I am Ser Jaime Lannister, no one commands me, no one gets in my way—“Stand down,” she repeats again, quieter this time, and suddenly she’s not an impudent whelp standing between him and his prey, she’s Brienne and she’s got her own sword and she will never, ever let him treat her like she doesn’t.Get off your white horse, Ser Jaime, and obey your commander’s orders.On the road to King's Landing and the aftermath of the war, Brienne and Jaime struggle to find time together. But there's more than one reason not to sleep alone. TRIGGER WARNING: mentions of rape/sexual assault.
Relationships: Jaime Lannister/Brienne of Tarth, Past Cersei Lannister/Jaime Lannister - Relationship
Comments: 50
Kudos: 250





	the crime deserves the punishment

**Author's Note:**

> So life has been absolutely crazed and I have not had much time for fic, but this plot bunny started hopping one day and I decided to treat myself to a fic-break. Maybe more will follow! Or maybe not. I'm a maverick, guys.
> 
> This does not take place in the Winter Isn't Goin' Nowhere 'verse, though if I do write more I'll probably add something to that series. This is basically the end of Season 8 except Jaime didn't leave and drive us all to misery and rage.
> 
> If you want me to write more, leave reviews. They taste like candy.

“Jaime, stop, I have to—would you get—_Jaime—_”

“_Don’t go_,” he breathes hotly down the front of her shirt, left hand creeping over the bare skin of her thigh even as she tries to wrestle her breeches back up from where he’s pushed them down around her knees. She grunts in surprise when he bites her collarbone perhaps a little too hard and his right arm squeezes her waist tight, pulling her flush against him so that he can roll his hips up at just the right angle for her to feel him hard and insistent against her inner thigh.

“I’m _going,_” she insists, even as she kneads at his bicep and her hips rock forward, just a bit, just a _little_ harder, _please_—

“Don’t you want me to fuck you?” he whispers, grabbing her ass and squeezing as hard as he can, and she gasps and buries her face in his neck.

“If you w-wanted to do that you—_uh—_should have managed your time better.”

“I can be quick,” Jaime hisses as he starts thrusting again, rubbing himself against her through his own breeches, leaning up to stick his tongue in her ear and savor the weak little moan and full-body shudder it gets him.

“_Ooooh—_y-you always say th-that but you—you never—"

Jaime takes advantage of the ground gained to mount a charge, bending his knees and tensing his stomach and heaving them upright so that Brienne is forced to rock back on her own knees to straddle his lap as he comes up, right arm around her waist and left hand in her hair, and he pulls her down into a kiss that could kill a man, hot and panting and just enough teeth, _Gods_ she tastes good, she feels good, she’s heavy on him and her hands cup his face and the way she _growls_ when he bites her lower lip, his left hand jerks down from her hair to her breast and he kneads at it, pinching the nipple, and she’s so hot right there where she presses against him, thrust, thrust, over and over, heat and pressure and _Brienne_—

“Enough—_oh_—mmm—Jaime—gods, Jaime, I—I said _enough_!”

Rarely _(very very rarely)_ Jaime wishes Brienne were not quite so strong. He tends to wish that in moments like this, when a more delicate woman would have had considerably more trouble breaking his grip and wrenching herself to her feet, out of his arms, leaving him cold and bereft and almost unbearably frustrated.

He glares up at her as she smooths her hair back and tries to catch her breath. Her breeches sit low on her square hips, one lace broken from his mad attempts to yank them off, and her shirt is untied, hanging open across her shoulders to torture him with a strip of flushed skin and one small, tight breast peeking out. She’s only wearing one boot, her hair is resisting all attempts at subjugation, and between the redness of her mouth and the purple bruises along her collarbone and throat there’s no doubting what kind of battle she’s just come from.

She’s an absolute vision, and if she leaves this tent without letting him touch her again Jaime’s going to fucking die.

“She’s _fine,_” he whines, so worked up that he doesn’t even attempt to sound like anything but a desperate wreck. Brienne gives him a withering look as she starts to lace up her shirt. Usually he’s entranced by the slender beauty of her long fingers, so unexpected in someone who wields a sword with such brutal force, but right now he hates them, evil traitors, covering more and more skin with each second.

“You don’t know that. _I_ don’t know that unless I’m there, with her, that’s the _point,”_ Brienne huffs at him. Finished with the shirt, she moves to lace her breeches and encounters the broken cord. The look she gives him makes Jaime feel like a dog who’s chewed on his master’s slippers again. Not even bothering to try, she just hoists the loose breeches a little higher and goes to look for her other boot.

_(Jaime knows where it is, over in the corner under Podrick’s cot. But he’s not going to tell her. Mostly to keep her here longer but also out of spite.)_

“Sansa is Queen in the North by all rights, she’s got an entire army of devoted soldiers surrounding her, she doesn’t need her sworn sword at constant beck and call.”

She ignores him as she hunts for her boot. Jaime falls back on his elbows, resigned now to the hostile future of being abandoned here in his tent with a raging erection and no show of mercy from a perfectly able but infuriatingly stubborn warrior woman. He sighs and resists the urge to reach down and palm himself for some inadequate relief before rolling over and hunting for his own shirt, lost somewhere beneath his thin pillow.

Outside, the night is dark but the campfires are not, and the men are far from asleep. The march down from Winterfell to King’s Landing is not particularly trying, even in the winter, and with no enemy to be encountered along the way, it almost becomes tedious. The men are staying up late most nights, telling stories and gambling and letting off just enough steam to keep things calm _(most of the time)_. They’re not moving with a full army, rather a robust but spare skeleton company to protect Sansa Stark as she makes her way to the capital to discuss the aftermath of several recent regicides. Cersei is dead, Danaerys is dead, Jon Snow is in chains, Tyrion is—well, it’s not entirely clear where Tyrion is, only that he’s not dead and Grey Worm is unhappy with him. But it has been years and years of war, long enough for children to grow up with dangers between their teeth, and in this moment it seems that maybe, just maybe, the flow of blood may be stanched by cool heads and calm words.

So Sansa is on her way to King’s Landing, and of course Brienne is going with her, which means Jaime and Podrick are going with her. And it should say something about Jaime’s life and what it’s come to that he would really rather stay in Winterfell than go back south, but ever since the Long Night, Winterfell has ceased to become a drafty freezing crypt where the corpses of his worst sins lie buried only inches from the surface. Now Winterfell is a warm room with a blazing fire and a flagon of wine, where Brienne lets him lie with his head on her chest and one of her mile-long legs hooked over both of his, and he breathes apace with her heartbeat and feels that he is home.

But no, she _had_ to go and protect her Lady, so Jaime and Podrick do what they both do best and follow where Brienne leads, which is why Jaime has been sharing a tent with Pod for the last two weeks and pretending to be asleep until the squire starts to snore and then rolling onto his side and feverishly taking himself in hand to the thought of _Brienne, Brienne, Brienne._

He wasn’t like this before, couldn’t be, not with how dangerous it was to try and seek Cersei out. A lifetime of forbidden sex had rendered him strangely binary, either cold as a fish or mad with lust, the fire in his veins cooled to hibernation for long periods of time while his sister was away or moody or paranoid. He learned not to want when he couldn’t have, and to explode into desire when he could. Cersei would come to him and touch his chest and he would be hard before the first kiss, fuck her with animal fervor, put his mouth of every single part of her and never be satisfied—more than once she’d had to strike or scratch at him to make him take his hands off her, and even then he would lie there like a kicked dog, panting, itching to reach out and drag her back down because who knew how long it would be until he felt alive again, who knew how long he would only have images and memories, who knew what he would have to do or who he would have to hurt to come back to the only person who made him feel this way.

It’s not like that with Brienne. It’s nothing like that. There is no long sleep and brief insanity. He wants her all the time, gets hard just thinking about her, misses the warmth and power of her body, but none of that is unbearable. It’s never a punishment or a sentence, and so it never cuts deep enough that he has to shut down inside to escape from it. In some ways Jaime feels like he’s fourteen again, discovering sex and frustration and arousal and awkwardness for the first time. It helps that Brienne has never been with anyone else and can herself be a special kind of awkward. They fit. They always have.

But he’s not feeling so serene about it all now, as he watches her finally locate the boot under Pod’s cot and pull it on. He _told_ her, hadn’t he, that Pod would be taking supper across the camp with that lad he’s so fond of, one of the Cerwyns, and that they could meet in his tent and it would be only them, no Sansa or Pod or prying eyes, just the first time in two weeks that they can be alone together and talk and touch each other. He told her all about his brilliant plan to engineer this circumstance _(which was really just telling Pod, “unless you want to wake up one night and find me humping _you,_ I suggest you make yourself scarce”)_ and she’d rolled her eyes and groaned but she’d come, out of armor, only her sword at her hip, and _she’d_ kissed _him_ first, before he had a chance to show her the flagon of Dornish wine he’d ferreted out and the halfway decent dinner he’d scrapped together, she’d taken his head in both of her hands just the way he loved the most and kissed him so deeply his knees had almost gone out from under him, and then he’d rallied and wrestled her onto his cot and for what felt like a sweet searing eternity they were just _together_, writhing and grinding and squeezing and gasping, not even bothering to undress because it would mean more time without his tongue lapping sweat from the well of her throat and her hands hot under his shirt and she was so strong, the way she flipped them and held him down and tugged at his ear with her teeth and murmured “_Jaime I missed you”_ so that he melted down into the hard cot that suddenly felt like a featherbed and that’s when he started to pull at her clothes, wanted them _off, _wanted to get _inside_, fuck her, be with her, _Brienne, please_—

_That_ was about she’d noticed how low the candle had burned and started trying to get off of him. Which was _not_ part of the brilliant plan.

“You’re doing this on purpose,” he accuses, mostly to get a rise out of her. “You’ve become a battle commander and now you’re mad with power, you petty vindictive thing.”

She rolls her eyes and stands back up, boots on, put together aside from her messy hair and loose breeches.

“That’s not me,” she tells him quietly, blue eyes gone deep and inky-black in the candlelight, and Jaime swallows, caught off-guard. Sometimes he forgets how—how different she is. From before. From his other half. The ghost who haunted him even before she died.

Brienne doesn’t let him forget, though. Not even in jest.

She keeps her eyes on his as she reaches out for her cloak and swordbelt, buckling the latter on first and then pulling the former around her shoulders and draping it so that it hides the comprised state of her trousers. “Sansa needs me with her. You and I both know an army of thousands is nothing against one well-trained assassin who knows what he’s looking for.”

“What _she’s_ looking for,” he replies, lips quirking. “If little Arya hadn’t run off with the Hound, Sansa would have her own assassin to watch her back, and I’d have you all to myself.”

“You’re very spoiled, do you know that?” Brienne asks blithely, stepping towards him where he’s reclining in surly grace on the cot.

“I’m a Lannister. Being spoiled is requisite.”

“I am aware.” Her voice is dry as she leans down and cradles his jaw in her wide palm. It’s not as cold down here as it was in the North, but she still feels so warm against him. Her eyes meet his, blue and serene with a spark of danger in the corner, and he can feel his heart in his mouth.

“You do miss me?” he breathes. Brienne bites her lip.

“I said I did.”

“Say it again.” Jaime puts his left hand against her own cheek. She rolls her eyes again.

“Spoiled.” But she smiles then, just a twitch of her lips. “I miss you, idiot that you are.”

Jaime grins and she leans in to kiss him. He wriggles closer, the fingers of his left hand trailing her throat and across her shoulder and down her arm and inside of her—

“Jaime!” Brienne shoots to her feet, face flushing, glaring at him. He stares back innocently, his exiled hand now resting beside the clothed bulge of his still half-hard cock.

“I miss you too?”

“Goodbye,” she grumbles, turning on her heel and heading for the flap of the tent as she pulls on her gloves and prepares to step out into the snow.

“Brienne!” He knows how pathetic he sounds, piping her name like a lovesick boy outside a balcony, but he doesn’t care. She turns to look at him, one foot already outside of the tent on her way back to Sansa’s pavilion at the center of camp.

“Ser?”

“Can you really stand another three weeks of this? Marching with a whole company between us, a few words at evening meal, cold beds?”

She frowns. “It’s not—I don’t enjoy it, but it’s a march, Jaime. How many have you done before, a hundred?”

“None with you.” Jaime sits up, stockingfeet making contact with the cold plank floor that hides the snowy field in which they’re camping. “I’ve been a prisoner of war and a lowly foot soldier and all types of commanders and I’ve never once needed more than a thought to get me through.”

_(A thought of who, he doesn’t say, but they both know.)_

“Then why—"

“A thought of you is not enough, Brienne.”

Brienne blushes so heavily he can see it in the dim candlelight. For a moment she seems to waver. He wants to say it, _I feel safe with you, what I think is safe, what I can imagine it must be, because I’ve never really felt it before and now that I’ve got it I’m a craving addict, needy and bereft, underneath the Lion is the person only you see and he wants to be seen, Brienne, he wants you._

He wants to say the words but he thinks she already knows, and that’s what makes it so hard.

“Once we cross the Trident,” she says quietly. “This is—we can do this. Again. I would like that.”

He lets out a breath, nods. She’s not coddling him, but she’s not denying him, and he knows because he’s been both of those things in confusing and cyclical spades for most of his life. It’s what he needs at once, strength and mercy, wrapped up in a person nothing like himself and everything he wants.

“Good night, then, Ser Brienne,” Jaime says, and her blue eyes shine back at him.

“Good night, Ser Jaime.”

* * *

It’s not the first time Jaime has been awoken by a piercing scream. But it’s not really something a person can get used to.

He wakes the way a soldier wakes, snapping to like a flint striking sparks, his hand already reaching for the hilt of his sword. Around him is darkness, the dull glow of the nearest campfire lending a silhouette to the sleeping form of Podrick Payne in the cot beside him. The boy hasn’t stirred. He hasn’t been alive long enough yet to know how dangerous heavy sleep can be.

There’s a ringing silence in the second after the scream. Real silence, meaning the men have stopped laughing and murmuring too. It was a woman, Jaime knows that, young-sounding, perhaps a camp-follower. It’s not unheard of for a bored soldier on a peaceable march to force himself on helpless girls, but most know better than to let them scream. Rape, for all Jaime has seen it sanctioned by law and ignored by justice, is still a crime that turns most men’s stomachs, and rapers within the ranks are made examples of.

And suddenly, only a breath after the first, another scream, louder still, and almost exactly at the same time a full-throated roar underneath it, like a lion, like a dragon, but it’s neither of those things, Jaime knows because he’s heard that sound before, punctuated by the grunts and curses of surly men as they yanked her back into the dark woods and threw her down and tried to pry her legs open in anticipation of—

He’s on his feet before the next beat of his heart, Widow’s Wail in his hand, and with a muffled grunt Podrick’s wide eyes are suddenly blinking up at him out of the dark, the boy is young but he’s loyal and nobody loyal to Brienne could sleep through the sound she just made.

“Ser Brienne, she—"

Pod is stammering and grabbing for his sword but Jaime is already out of the tent, running full-tilt in the boots he sleeps in because he _is_ a soldier and if his sword is needed in the night he’ll be there, she needs him, _Brienne_, and there are men all around him running too, Stark bannermen and squires and hostlers swarming to the source of the cries, and just as a third scream rents the air Jaime comes around the corner of a lean-to and sees the tall grey tent with the direwolf sigil stitched onto its sides and black flags waving from the poles—

Even as he races towards Sansa Stark’s tent, his stomach in his throat, Jaime catches a twitch of the front flap. A moment later it whips back as two men are thrown bodily out of the pavilion, flying several feet before landing in a pile of limbs and boiled leather. Jaime is almost there, a few steps away from the two groaning heaps on the ground, when a third man practically cartwheels out of the tent, reeling backwards with blood streaming down his face from his nose, and Brienne comes out right on his heels.

She looks ten feet tall, a warrior goddess made of iron and savage moonlight. Oathkeeper is clutched in one hand, raised but unbloodied, winking in the light of the guards’ campfire a few yards away. She is dressed in nothing but breeches and the same soft wool shirt she’d been lacing up in Jaime’s tent only hours ago. The shirt is open again, ripped wide at the throat and all the way down, the ties hanging broken from the eyelets. It has slipped down her left shoulder, exposing one of her breasts and a wide expanse of muscled torso in a strange parody of how she had looked in his tent. She is still wearing the breeches Jaime damaged and they sit too low on her hips, the broken laces dangling and the front open to reveal another flash of pale stomach. Blood trickles from her bottom lip where it’s split down the center, and a smear of it is visible on her collarbone, a dash of red beside the collection of purple bruises left by Jaime’s mouth. Her hair is ruffled, hanging down around her eyes, but it does nothing to hide the rage radiating off of her, so strong that Jaime, running towards her only a moment before, actually stumbles back a step, as though her anger is the gnawing heat of a blacksmith’s forge.

“_Coward!”_ she spits as she advances on the three men before her. Her bare feet crunch on the snow that layers the ground. Out in the light now, Jaime can see the shadow of a black eye blooming on the right side of her face. She does not seem to see the crowd gathering in a circle around them, she does not seem to see Jaime, she is a lioness stalking prey.

“Ser Brienne!”

Sansa Stark stands at the flap of her tent, red hair spilling down over her shoulders, wrapped in a fur-trimmed robe over her shift. Her grey wolf’s eyes spark steely in the firelight, and at the sound of her name Brienne comes to a halt.

“My lady,” she snarls without looking at Sansa. Jaime follows her gaze to the three men who lie in varying degrees of moaning disarray on the trampled snow. The first two, the ones Jaime had seen thrown from the tent, are older, thick beards of auburn and black both speckled with white hairs, and even from a few paces away Jaime can smell the tang of alcohol coming off of them. They flop around uselessly on the ground like landed fish, two drunks ejected from any Flea Bottom tavern at the end of the night.

The third man, whom Brienne had been running down before Sansa called for her, is younger, a strong lad not more than thirty, with sandy blonde hair. He doesn’t reek like the other two, his eyes are sharp and clear, and his movements as he cringes away from his towering pursuer are not clumsy or shaky like those of one soaked in ale. The blood pouring from his obviously-broken nose has started to slow now, though it still drips from his chin in scarlet drops that bloom on the snow.

“Are you hurt?” Sansa demands now, imperious even in her nightgown and undressed hair. The still-growing crowd is murmuring and whispering as they take in the scene: the Lady of the North stood in cold repose, her sworn sword disheveled and glowing with fury, three men sprawled on the ground before them. Jaime stands at the edge of the circle of onlookers and watches Brienne with a hammering heart. Every instinct he has is telling him to go to her side with sword drawn and blood up, but there is something about the way she looks down at the blonde man’s bloody face that keeps him where he is.

“I’m all right, Lady Stark,” Brienne replies in a brittle voice.

“_I’m_ hurt!” shouts one of the drunks as he flails around in the snow. Brienne bares her teeth.

“You don’t yet know what hurt is!”

“We didn’t do nuffin’!” slurs his black-bearded compatriot, struggling to prop himself up on his hands and knees. “Just ‘avin’ a bit of a laugh—”

Brienne takes one step forward and kicks the man viciously in the chest. He collapses back down with a howl as the onlookers draw back in confused alarm.

“You will not speak before Lady Stark,” Brienne says, and the steel in her voice bites and the blood on her chin drips and with her bare feet and uncovered breast glowing in the fire she looks to Jaime’s eyes like something from a tapestry, Visenya Targaryen born again. He’s in awe of her, caught in the spell of her power and grandeur, perhaps focusing on the wrong things in this somewhat fraught moment but he’s only human, not like her, not like his Ser.

“Whose men are they?” Sansa asks, her hand still clutching her robe closed below her throat. A murmur goes through the crowd, and a moment later someone calls out, “Lord Reed’s, my lady.”

“Lord Reed don’t b’grudge us our jollies,” squawks Blackbeard, apparently having already forgotten Brienne’s command. “Two weeks’ march and we kept up, ain’t we? Nuffin’ wrong wiv a little fun!”

Brienne’s foot is already coming back for another kick, but Sansa gets there before her, whirling out into the snow in a flurry of red hair and fur robe, her icy anger bearing down on the three men like a blizzard. “So that is your idea of ‘fun’? To try and force yourselves on a knight of the seven kingdoms while she sleeps?”

That breaks the spell.

A roar goes up within the crowd and something hot and red boils up through Jaime’s spine and Widow’s Wail jerks to attention and he’s moving again, towards the wretches lying in the snow, the ones who hurt Brienne, _they tried to touch Brienne, I’m not tied to a tree this time and I’ve already lost a hand for her but I have one left with which to hack you limb from limb you sons of bitches—_

A great _clang_ reverberates through the air and a shockwave travels down Jaime’s arm as Widow’s Wail makes contact with its twin. He hears gasps and muttered curses from the onlookers as Brienne’s eyes burn into his, cutting through the sudden haze of rage, and with a graceful flick of her wrist Oathkeeper deflects Widow’s Wail down to the ground, away from the auburn-bearded head cowering inches below the point of contact.

“Stand down, Ser Jaime,” she growls, and his hand automatically tightens on the hilt of his sword, _how dare she, I am Ser Jaime Lannister, no one commands me, no one gets in my way—_

“Stand _down,”_ she repeats again, quieter this time, and suddenly she’s not an impudent whelp standing between him and his prey, she’s Brienne and she’s got her own sword and she will never, ever let him treat her like she doesn’t.

_Get off your white horse, Ser Jaime, and obey your commander’s orders._

Trembling slightly and breathing hard, Jaime takes a step back. All the men around them are whispering and hissing but not with an air of amusement, not what one might expect after Brienne’s previous experiences in an army camp. Out of the corner of his eye, Jaime catches sight of Podrick in the crowd, trying to shove his way through to Brienne’s side. Several soldiers who Jaime knows fought in their company during the Long Night are staring at the three men on the ground with cold disgust, and he sees other hands going for swords. He remembers his own treatment at the hands of Stark soldiers all those years ago, and for a moment he feels strangely smug.

“Didn’t try to force nuffin’!” blubbers Jaime’s would-be victim, falling over himself as he tries to crawl away. “Just f’ought we’d see what she’s got under there, innit, see for ourselves!”

“Just a joke, milady,” Blackbeard adds, truly not knowing when to shut up. Sansa glares down at both of them, a pillar of crimson-haired ice rising from the snow. She raises her hand as thought to deliver a malediction.

“I’b sorry!”

It’s the first thing the blonde man has said, and it’s hard to hear through his broken nose. But he sounds sincere, his hands clasped before him as he rises onto his knees and looks all the more pathetic and penitent for the blood smeared across his face and chest. To Jaime’s eyes he must be hardly more than Pod’s age, and he has wide brown eyes with an earnest air to them.

“I’b sorry, milady, and Ser Briedde—they was drinkid’ and rowdy and I was scared to say doh—id was their idea, blease, miladies, I beg your forgibdess!”

He sounds so very young and frightened, nothing like the two drunks stupidly squawking beside him. His eyes shine fervently up at Sansa, who even in her cold majesty seems to soften, and Jaime hears “poor stupid lad” and “didn’t know no better” muttered in the crowd around them, and he looks to Brienne—

She is staring down at the pleading youth with a look that Jaime has never seen on her face before. He’s seen her hate and he’s seen her anger and maybe he’s the only one who has ever seen her fear, but he’s never seen all three together, the way he does now.

_What happened?_

“Ser Brienne,” Sansa says, and Brienne doesn’t even blink.

“Yes, my lady.”

“What sentence do you pass on these three men?”

Another wave of surprised murmurs as Brienne does look at Sansa now, her brow furrowed.

“What do I…?”

“These were no assassins come in the night to slit my throat,” Sansa says with unsettling serenity. “You are a knight of impeccable honor, and you have the right to pass judgment on your attackers. I will trust and uphold whatever punishment you feel worthy.”

Jaime’s mouth falls slightly open as the men around him make confused noises. On the one hand, these are Lord Reed’s men: it’s questionable whether Sansa has the right to do anything more than imprison them, let alone hand over judgment to Brienne. On the other hand, if he can’t hack these would-be raper scum to pieces with his own sword, the least he can do is enjoy watching them squirm and weep for Brienne’s mercy.

Unfortunately, the drunks don’t actually seem to have a grip on what’s going on, as they’re too busy trying and failing to get to their feet. Brienne contemplates them flopping around and grunting garbled curses with the kind of revulsion usually reserved for a rotting horse carcass blocking the byroad.

“Able-bodied men are of too much value in present circumstances, my lady,” she says after a moment. Her voice is low and calm, but the anger pulses hotly underneath. “Pathetic as they might be, it would be wasteful to execute them.”

“Hear hear!” shouts Auburn, and that’s it, Jaime can only take so much, before he can stop himself he steps forward and backhands the idiot across the face—well, if one can backhand without an actual hand. It probably feels more like being gently bludgeoned. Jaime’s not picky about the experience, so long as the message gets across.

Blackbeard starts to protest as his friend goes once more back down into the snow, but Jaime pivots gracefully and levels his sword right in the man’s ruddy face. Two bloodshot eyes cross as they try to focus on the steady point.

“Speak in the presence of Ser Brienne again and you’ll both lose your tongues,” he hisses. “You don’t need those to be of value. Perhaps your worth would actually increase.”

A hush falls over the men. Jaime chances a look at Brienne, half-wondering if she’ll be furious with him too now for butting in. But there is only a grim satisfaction in her face when she looks down at Auburn swaying and trembling on his knees, and for a moment her eyes meet Jaime’s and he feels his own spine straighten.

“These two should be put in chains,” Brienne continues as she turns back to Sansa, chin up and words sure. “When they’ve sobered, they will set to work hauling garbage, digging latrines, and doing whatever low tasks better men deserve to be spared of. At night, they should be locked to posts, so as to prevent further exploration into tents that are not theirs.”

Sansa’s lips twitch, and all around are nods and murmurs of approval. Only the sickest men (like the Boltons) enjoy seeing soldiers executed, and Brienne’s sentence combines mercy with the practicalities of a march. Jaime catches sight of Pod standing at the front of the crowd, jaw set and fists clenched as he looks to his knight with burning pride. Jaime can relate.

“It shall be done,” Sansa says, and with a wave of her hand several soldiers break away from the others and swarm the three men on the ground, yanking them to their feet and holding them at attention. The two drunks shout and stagger, struggling to break free, while the younger blonde man allows himself to be roughly corralled.

“Exactly as Ser Brienne says,” Sansa instructs her men, grey eyes glinting. “Chain them to posts and ensure that they will not freeze to death before the night is past. Then put them to work in the morning.”

A ripple of low laughter flows through the crowd as the soldiers pull their drunken captives away from the clearing, slurred protests falling on deaf ears. Jaime fights the urge to run after them and deliver his own justice on behalf of Brienne. This whole episode will be humiliating enough for her, he knows, and he refuses to knowingly make it worse by playing the rescuer _(any more insistently than his little outburst just now, at least)_. But _damn_, those fuckers tried to put their hands on Brienne and he would have loved to see their blood flow.

“And him?”

The sound of Lady Sansa’s voice drags him back to the circle, to the third sentence yet unpassed upon the blonde man who hangs his head penitently and does not struggle against the soldiers holding him. He really does look young and pitiful, a lad misled by drunken bullies, and while Jaime would still be thrilled to murder anyone who was even present for _discussion_ of an attempt to rape Brienne, he imagines that the broken nose and public humiliation may be the extent of the punishment Brienne prescribes for this foolish boy.

Which is why it feels like the wind has been knocked out of him when Brienne coldly looks the youth up and down and then says, “He should lose a hand, my lady.”

The men had already started to disperse, assuming the matter dealt with; at Brienne’s words, many of them spin back around, crowding closer, speaking loudly and over each other in indignant waves. Sansa’s mouth falls open, shocked, and Jaime can barely move.

_A hand. Lose a hand. After they—after he—she was there when they took it from him, she would never—_

“A hand?” Sansa manages finally. “Are you sure, Ser Brienne?”

Brienne is not looking at her lady. She is looking at the blonde man, who stares back with an expression of blank terror on his face, already starting to tremble. There is no mercy or pity in Brienne’s face. Her toes are turning blue in the snow, her breast and shoulder are still exposed and glowing white in the firelight, but she doesn’t seem to feel any of it. It’s only her and him now, and for a moment as he watches from the sidelines Jaime is back on that bridge, manacles clanking, sword drawn, retreating as this massive woman stalks towards him and threatening to dissolve under the weight of her wrath.

“Blease, by lady!” the youth gasps through his shattered nose as he wrenches himself free from the men holding him and falls to his knees. He clasps his hands in front of his chest, pleading, imploring, a pathetic sight. “Blease, bercy, I didn’t bean any harb—they forced be, they did, I was stubid, jusd a joke—”

“I am sure,” Brienne says, as though she had not heard him speak at all. Her fingers visibly tighten around Oathkeeper. “To each crime the sentence it deserves.”

“But the other two—” Sansa begins, then stops herself. She swallows and clutches her cloak closer to her throat. “I trust your judgement, ser. If you say what this man has done warrants such a sentence, then—”

“I _do_!”

It’s the first time Jaime has heard Brienne interrupt Lady Sansa. Maybe ever. And for the first time that night, her voice is something other than solid and strong with rage or eerie calm; it cracks on the second word, suddenly high and desperate, and Jaime feels his heart jolt deep inside of him. For a long moment, nobody speaks, and the only sound is the crackling of the torches and the moaning of the wind.

“He should lose a hand and count himself lucky he does not lose anything more precious,” Brienne says, the edge of a lingering tremor in her words. She seems to grow paler, maybe from the cold, maybe from rage, and in her hand Oathkeeper starts to shake ever so slightly. “He should never forget what happens to men who—do what he has done.”

The next few seconds seem to stretch out to twice their normal length, and at the same time they fracture into several intersecting levels. On one, Jaime is surrounded by the words that have just curled out of Brienne’s mouth in clouds of icy breath, _men who do what he has done_, the tone of her voice, the way she had to pause and summon the courage to keep going, the horrible ring of familiarity that sends him back to those brief moments before they took his hand but after they brought her back from the woods, when she was tied to the tree again and sat there on the ground trembling and kicking out at them and snarling to hide the terrified tears in the corners of her eyes.

On another, Jaime can only watch and listen as Sansa takes a deep breath and nods and says, “Then it shall be done,” and the young man kneeling on the ground recoils as the fear on his face morphs into something else, something much uglier, and his lip curls and his bloodstained teeth are bared as he shouts, “You fugging _bitch_, fugging Gingslayer’s _whore,_ I’ll show you who—” and then he’s on his feet and charging but Brienne’s sword is up and soldiers are shouting and running and Sansa cries out again—

And finally, on yet another plane, Jaime sees all of this happen while his own missing right hand clenches and unclenches, its many sins shooting through the phantom tendons and muscles like cramps, and he feels the enormity of everything he had done to bring himself to that point, to the moment he lost everything and began to really live for the first time.

When Oathkeeper whistles downwards and the young man’s scream echoes across camp, Jaime is still standing there, sword hanging lamely at his side, nailed to the spot by an overwhelming sense of shame.

* * *

They don’t touch again for almost three weeks.

Jaime doesn’t push her, not at first. He waits for her to come to him, on the march or in his tent or during meals, but she’s never more than an arm’s length from Sansa and her head is almost always down. The black eye darkens and lingers for days, the cut on her lip splits again in the cold and bleeds on and off throughout the march. He sees Podrick try to approach her once or twice—the boy has courage, misguided though it might be—and hurry away moments later, summarily rebuffed. After a week has passed, Jaime sits as close to her as he can at meals and tries to catch her eye, but she won’t look at him; he rides near her at the front of the march, too close not to be seen, but she won’t look at him; he calls her name outside of Sansa’s tent at night, but she doesn’t emerge and she won’t answer and she won’t won’t won’t look at him.

The incident that night has soured the mood in the camp. The young man, whose name is apparently Terren, rides at the back of the company, his bleeding stump wrapped in linen and his groans echoing across the heads of many soldiers. Jaime does everything he can to avoid the sight, dreading the nausea that inevitably erupts every time he encounters it. The two drunks have indeed been set to the least enjoyable camp work, but in the sober light of day they know well enough to keep their mouths shut. Everyone on the march looks forward to their arrival in King’s Landing, when a change in circumstances will push aside the memory of Sansa’s screams and Brienne grasping at dignity even as she stood in the snow with her shirt torn open.

For his part, Jaime hates it all. He hates feeling useless and impotent when it comes to protecting the woman he loves. He hates these Stark soldiers, dour and sullen and judgmental, traipsing past him all day long. He hates Pod’s concerned glances at Brienne and the way he grinds his teeth in their tent at night. He hates the snow and the slush as they move south and the slight thaw only makes everything wetter and muddier. He hates Lady Sansa’s cold eyes and the memory of ugliness stealing over Terren’s face and most of all he hates that Brienne won’t talk to him, won’t come to him, won’t _trust_ him, she said she did, she said it in front of Sansa and the Dragon Queen and even his little brother, why can’t she let him help her now, why does she insist on being so fucking _alone?_

It comes to a head when they’re a day from King’s Landing, camped in the surrounding hills along the edge of the Kingsroad. The camp is lively that evening, full of villagers and townsfolk searching for news and provisions in the wake of the Dragon Queen’s destruction of King’s Landing. Soldiers hand out food, adults chatter as children run past tents and torches, and then, in the midst of everything, exclamations and shouts are suddenly flying, because Arya Stark has ridden up on a white horse and demanded to see her sister.

Jaime doesn’t care how Arya survived or what she’s seen. He doesn’t care what’s happened to the Hound, whose conspicuous absence seems to hit Lady Sansa like a slap to the face. He doesn’t care about anything besides Brienne, who shares a few whispered words with Sansa before the elder Stark disappears into a tent with her little sister and leaves her tall bodyguard standing outside in the night, with a strange, almost childlike air of lostness.

He’s not spying on her, he would never do that. But he may or may not have been doing a little casual skulking. When Sansa dismisses Brienne and leaves her outside the tent it takes absolutely no time for Jaime to make a beeline straight for his fellow knight, and in a moment he has his hand wrapped around her wrist and she whirls around, eyes cutting through him _(finally she will look at him, Gods he’s missed those eyes)_ but he does not quail or retreat, merely stands there and looks back and says her name, “Brienne,” soft like a sweet question.

For a second, she seems about to pull away. And if he’s being honest with himself, he’d probably follow her if she did, dog her steps until she either kicked or cut him. But then something shifts—her blue eyes widen slightly, glowing in the dark and the orange firelight, and it’s almost as if she’s recognizing him after a moment of confusion—and when he pulls her gently towards his tent she follows, long legs matching his stride.

Podrick is in their tent, cleaning his sword, when they come inside. A moment later, Podrick is out of their tent, and Jaime doesn’t care where. The flap swings closed and they’re alone together in the box of canvas, the only light coming from the candle by Podrick’s cot. Brienne’s face is half-hidden in the gloom, but he can tell she’s still looking at him. Her eyes shine like the moon on the sea.

She’s wearing her armor. Before the—before what happened, she hadn’t been wearing it every night, not particularly keen to strap more than thirty pounds of metal onto herself if she didn’t have to. But she’s been wearing it day and night ever since. The blue steel is inky and liquid in the dim light, gleaming like a mussel shell. The straight diagonal lines on the breastplate dip down and disappear in the shadows around her hips, where the ruby in Oathkeeper’s hilt winks weakly. Her shoulders look so broad and strong underneath the dented pauldrons. Jaime wants to drink her in, consume her, have everything about her. More than anything, he wants to take hold of that soft, pale, achingly beloved face of hers, with its big blue eyes and stubbornly hidden cares, and make her remember what he is willing to do for her. What he has done for her. What she can trust him to do now.

He reaches out tentatively, wary of spooking her. It’s been days and days and days. They haven’t spoken. They haven’t touched. She watches his left hand like it’s a snake slithering towards her.

“Brienne,” he says again, and his fingertips brush against her cheek.

It’s like being unseated in a joust, a body blow of incredible strength that hits him so suddenly and violently he sees stars. Brienne’s mouth is on his, her lips pressed hard enough against him that he can feel his own teeth cutting into his skin, and her body is wrapped in cold steel that aches at his ribs where he is pinned against its hard flat planes and bold edges. Her arms are wrapped around his chest, she’s squeezing him so tightly he feels like his eyes might pop out of his head and she’s kissing him wildly, grunting and growling deep in her throat, and every part of Jaime is immediately hot and tight and breathless, near to bursting, from the pressure of her hold and from the force of her passion, the way she’s devouring _him_, consuming _him, _not the other way around and Gods it’s exactly right. He clutches at her hair and moans and tries to keep his feet but it’s near impossible. She’s a force of nature, she’s the winter wind, she’s unbreakable honor-strong _Brienne, _and he dives into her power with desperate gratitude.

He wants to feel her, not just the outline of her through her armor but _her_, and as they gasp and groan and bite at each other’s mouths his left hand slides out of her hair and down to where he knows the pauldron buckles on, a little ways down from her armpit. But before he can do more than tug uselessly at the buckle, Brienne is jerking away, stumbling back, and it’s almost in slow-motion that one of her feet catches on the leg of the cot and she goes over in a crash of plate armor, cursing loudly as she hits the plank floor with Jaime half-on top of her, a tangle of metal limbs and flailing hands.

Jaime feels the jolt and hears the crash when they land and he winces in involuntary sympathy: he’s taken a fall in armor before, he knows how it knocks the wind out of you and bruises deep beneath the skin. He immediately tries to roll off of her, lighten the pressure bearing down, but to his surprise he finds himself still locked in her embrace, one arm resolutely curled under his shoulder and around his ribs, holding him to her. Thankfully their fall didn’t knock over the candle, though down here its light makes little difference. Jaime struggles to raise himself up on his elbows, get enough space to find her face, her incredible eyes, in the haze of shadows.

“Brienne, are you—”

“I want it on,” she gasps, clearly winded from the fall and his weight on top of her. She struggles for breath even as her hand slides down along his spine to his ass, and when she grabs and squeezes with brutal strength Jaime can’t stop the groan that spontaneously rises up from a more animal part of him.

“You—you want—”

“My armor.” She swallows, tries to get a full breath. “_Your_ armor, that you—please, Jaime, don’t take it off me, I don’t—”

“All right,” he whispers, and when she keeps trying to get enough air to keep talking he breaks her grip on him enough to heave himself to his hands and knees, relieving her of the added bulk. He hovers over her, feeling metal everywhere, rubbing against it wherever he touches her.She’s hard, hard and cold, a knight set to ride off and face the world’s dangers.

His eyes have adjusted and he can see her face clearly, flushed cheeks and clenched jaw, a storm raging in those deep blue eyes.

“What do you need?” he asks her in a low, rough voice. His blood is up now, from the way she attacked him and the adrenaline of the fall and the mix of desperation and authority in her pleas to keep her armor on, _her_ armor, his gift to her, and Jaime doesn’t know what to do aside from whatever she wants him to.

“Touch me,” she whispers back, still breathless, even as she reaches up again to try and pull him back down against her.

“Are you sure?”

“I miss you, I want you, _touch me_, _please,_” and oh, how does she do that, how does she command and beg in the same breath, Jaime doesn’t know and he doesn’t care, all he can manage right now is to let her guide his mouth back to hers and then kiss her until she loses her breath again. He pulls out every stop, everything he knows she likes, sucking on her tongue and nipping at her lips and then licking deep into the back of her mouth, refusing to let up or pull away until they’re both dizzy and hot and shaking.

“T-touch me,” she gasps one last time when he finally gives her mouth back, and this time he does more than kiss her.

It’s not easy. It never was, really, not since he lost his hand, but before Brienne he never fucked anyone who wasn’t in a dress and before now they’ve never fucked with a full suit of plate armor in the way. But he’s Jaime Lannister, famed and infamous throughout the Seven Kingdoms, and if he can’t fuck a woman in armor then no one can.

He doesn’t waste time going places he’ll never reach. Anything beneath the breastplate or pauldrons or gorget is off-limits, which crosses some of his absolute favorite spots (her neck, her breasts, her collarbone) off his list of possible destinations. And if she wanted him there, wanted to be worshipped head to toe, she wouldn’t be fully-clothed in warrior’s garb and begging him to let her stay that way. So Jaime does what he usually _never_ does with Brienne and heads directly for the hottest and softest part of her, no kissing or biting or stroking on the way there, no symphony of lovemaking to build to the climax.

It usually reminds him too much of Cersei, to fuck like that. He spent most of his adult life learning how to drive Cersei mad without ever touching her between her legs, discovering every possible temptation and trick that might capture her attention and convince her to let him prolong things just a little longer, stay with him just a few minutes more, come to him more than once in several months. And yet, most times she wouldn’t let him distract her, would shove him down to her cunt with long-nailed hands curled around his shoulders or use those same talons to yank his hips against hers, and then they would fuck savagely until she was done and didn’t want anymore, didn’t want him anymore.

Brienne has never tried to make him just get it over with. In life she is the consummate leader but in bed, at least at first, she was no charger, no first wave of infantry attack. He had to come to her room, begin to unlace her shirt, kiss her when words threatened to overrun the moment. From the very start, he’s made it his mission to lavish every single skill he has on her body, give her everything inexperience and the lessons of cruel words have left her too timid or unsure to ask for. He sucks and bites and licks at her breasts until they bruise purple, bites her nipple until she sobs, leaves bruises on her inner thighs and the wet of his tongue on her stomach and ass and the nape of her neck. He tortures her for hours before he even breathes against her cunt, and usually by that time she’s half-delirious, the great Ser Brienne reduced to breathy sobs and twitching hips and wetness that soaks through the sheets or into the grass or down into whatever they’re fucking on, a slick writhing mess who comes three times on his mouth before he even gets his cock into her, and Gods it tests his patience but it’s good, it’s _so fucking good._

Not tonight, though.

Tonight she wears her armor and Jaime does not try to pierce it. Instead he goes straight for her breeches, first unbuckling the swordbelt _(Oathkeeper gleams in the candlelight, a heavy weight of Lannister gold that he shoves aside beneath his own cot)_ and then worming his fingers under the bottom edge of her chestplate so he can work the trousers lower, enough to get to the laces tied at the top, and then he’s ripping them down the front, not caring if he breaks them again, just wanting it all done, over, gone—

And then the knot slips and the ties loosen and in another moment Jaime has them peeled open and down, as far as they can go before they are stuck in place by the cuisses on her thighs. It’s not enough not room, not for him: he wants to have her legs spread wide open so that he can see her, soft and warm and vulnerable.

But that’s not what she wants. Not tonight.

Jaime lets out a shaky breath as he readjusts his weight, trying a couple different angles before he comes onto his right elbow and gets up high enough that his left hand can slip up her armored thigh and over the top of the breeches. His fingers slide into the tight space, past the coarse blonde hair that he likes to tug gently on sometimes and down and in and—

Sweet Gods, she’s absolutely drenched, so wet he almost expects to find blood on his fingers after the first firm swipe against her clit. But he knows the consistency of blood, especially from a woman, and it’s not that, it’s Brienne, pure _Brienne_, and if he weren’t sure then the noise she makes when he touches her again is more than a confirmation.

“_Jaime_,” she whines, and the sound of it is so broken and desperate that—that that’s it, there’s no room for anything else in him but her, and almost automatically his fingers start to move, thumb pressing and rolling and circling over her clit while he slips two fingers inside of her and starts to curl them, beckoning, rubbing against the parts of her he knows to be most sensitive, and he is trying to push himself higher up so that he can see her face as he does it, her brilliant red cheeks and open mouth and the way her brow furrows like she doesn’t understand, like it’s too much to grasp at once, and between the sight and the sounds Jaime is not sure how much longer _he’ll_ be able to last.

It’s not about him. Not tonight.

The armor continues to make this difficult: the bottom of the chestplate is cutting into his wrist at a painful angle, and her cuisses keep riding up underneath her pants and giving him even less room, and the weight of it all is keeping her flat to the ground so that he can’t pull her up and kiss her the way he desperately wants to. And yet, even though it’s tricky and frustrating and requires a lot of focus, Jaime is starting to love this. He’s looking down at her, at Ser Brienne, who beat the Hound and fought the dead, who leads armies, who defies any man to be stronger or taller or more skilled with a sword—he’s looking down at her and she’s all woman and all his.

She’s breaking apart inside of her metal shell, head flung back and gloved hand clawing at the frame of the cot beside her, increasingly high-pitched moans and half-formed words slipping out of her throat in desperate bursts. She’s always loved his fingers _(which, given she’s only ever known his left hand, is both a pleasant surprise and a nice reassurance that yes, he really _is_ that good)_, even more than his mouth or his cock at times. She clenches around them and shoves herself down onto them, and when he curls them just so, harder than a tongue ever could and at an angle no cock can reach, thumb working in expert and relentless circles on her clit, it’s like a key clicking in a lock and Brienne falls utterly to pieces. In the past she’s screamed, a full throaty noise that she didn’t even remember making when Jaime teased her about it afterwards, or arched so far up off the bed that she’s nearly thrown Jaime to the floor, or alternatively goes so limp and blissful that he’s pretty sure she’s passed out for a minute or so. He doesn’t do it every time they make love _(too much of a good thing spoils the treat, as his mother used to say)_ but he fucking thinks about it all the time, replays her orgasms in his head, carries the glow of _I can do that I did that to her mine mine Ser Brienne mine_ around with him for the rest of the day.

But he’s never done this to her when she was head to toe in armor, and watching it now he thinks he might explode. This is the same armor she has fought and ridden and killed in, the armor no one has ever before breached, and yet in this moment Jaime is taking her apart from the inside. This is the trust he’s been craving from her, the tiny gap in her defenses that he’s been longing to find. Her defenses are all still up, but Jaime is allowed inside.

“Oh—_oh_—oh please, Gods, _harder_,” she moans, bucking so hard Jaime worries she’ll wrench his only remaining hand from his wrist. It’s currently buried deep in her breeches and in her, working furiously, trapped by the tightness of her pants and her chestplate and her thighs, and Jaime wants to be even closer somehow, but he can’t—or maybe he can, as close as one can get in a situation like this, and he shifts closer to her _(fingers never stopping)_ and he leans down and rests his head on the broad, flat surface of her breastplate. The metal is not cold as he expected, heated to a low coolness by the burning of her skin beneath padding and clothes, but it smashes his ear to his head and is hard against his cheek and jaw. He can feel her shuddering violently underneath, and when he adjusts his wrist slightly and curls his fingers brutally hard against a deep spot, the plate vibrates with the force of her cry.

“_Jaime, _mmmmm-mmm oh oh oh—_please_—”

Jaime’s entire body is pulsing right now, beating itself against her armor where they are wrapped around each other like a fist against a door. He’s all feeling right now, no thought, no wonder, just sensation and lust and a dragonfire blast of emotion, a man burned to cinders by love and reborn into a new fire, phoenix and lion in one, and it’s all too much, the hardness of the metal and the softness of her cunt and the tears in her voice—tears—

“Brienne,” he gasps, and he lifts his head to see her face wet with more than sweat, she’s weeping even as her cries goes louder and higher and he recognizes the way she’s moving and the sounds she’s making, she’s about to come, come _hard_, maybe harder than she ever has with him, and he plants his foot and shoves himself up along her side and whispers, “Yield, ser,” and she meets his eyes for a blinding second, and then right at the moment his mouth descends on hers in a deep and plunging kiss and he tastes blood from her split lip, his entire palm grinds against her cunt and his fingers strain and _press_ and she seizes up before releasing all around and over him, bucking wildly, armor clanking, a series of sobs and moans bursting out of her, on and on because he’s not stopping, like hell he’s stopping, he kisses her and fucks her with his fingers for what feels like one, two, three, four—he loses count, but by the time Brienne makes a pathetic whimpering squeak and weakly pushes his hand away from her, he knows she’s been coming, over and over again, coming for minutes and he’s never done that for _anyone_ before, never seen anything like it, the wet and the smell and the throbbing pain in his overworked forearm and the profoundly overwhelming sense of joy.

It takes Jaime a moment to realize, as he slumps back onto the ground with an exhausted groan, that a part of that joy is from his own orgasm. His breeches are slimy inside and his hips ache from the rutting he didn’t realize he’d been doing against the unarmored portion of her hip. Aside from a few wet dreams throughout the years _(and they were truly few and far between)_, Jaime can’t recall ever coming without noticing he had. He’d wonder at the miracle of it if he weren’t still so overwhelmingly blissed out.

There’s no telling how long they lie there on the floor of his and Podrick’s tent, Brienne still in a full suit of armor with Jaime’s hand shoved deep into her crotch and Jaime drifting in and out of awareness while his breeches go stiff and tacky. They won’t be disturbed, not by anyone with the desire to see the morning: Jaime recalls vaguely just how loud they were being, and he wouldn’t be surprised if this entire side of the camp is empty. He doesn’t care.

Jaime is the first one to move, and it’s because his wrist has finally started to cramp. Slowly, gently, he pulls his hand out of Brienne’s trousers, making a quiet shushing noise when she moans. His fingers have literally pruned, and he flexes them carefully, savoring a sense of deep masculine pride even while he winces slightly at the deep ache in the tendons of his wrist. He’ll feel that whenever he hefts his sword in the next couple days.

Then he hears it: a light sniffle, immediately disguised as a cough. But she can’t disguise the tears welling in her eyes, the same ones he had seen as he drove her to orgasm, and even as she clamps her eyes shut and tries to pretend there’s nothing there Jaime is sliding his arm back across the expanse of hard metal and heavy armored pieces and gathering her close to him, something warm and soft inside a strong fortress, pulling all of it and all of her into his chest.

“You can tell me,” he whispers, and she stiffens in his arms, takes a shaky breath.

“It’s nothing.”

“Brienne.”

“It was nothing worse than what I’ve known before.”

“_Brienne.”_

For a long moment, she lies silent, and he wonders if she’ll really never let herself share the burden. Well, if not, he’ll still be here, willing and ready, just as he promised he would be.

“He was in me when I woke up.”

Jaime’s hand, spread wide and warm across her opposite hip, twitches slightly. His nails dig into her clothed flesh.

“The other two—they tried to hold my legs down but you saw how they were, I just kicked and they went flying, but he—”

She stops, swallows, takes a deep breath. Jaime forces himself to lie still.

“He had his hand inside me, and his other hand around my throat. He was younger than me, strong, I tried to throw him off but—” Another deep breath. “He hit me across the face and then he moved his hand and—and—_scratched_.”

She chokes out the word, and Jaime thinks he might be sick. His own hand feels like a dead fish at the end of his wrist.

“He ripped my shirt open and leaned down and I smashed my head into his, that’s when his nose broke, and it gave me the chance to shove him off and get my sword and then that was it. Lady Sansa woke up and screamed and I threw them all out.”

Brienne turns her head, and for the first time since they came into the tent she seeks his gaze. “I’m sorry, Jaime, I didn’t—I wanted to come to you but there was blood and riding made it worse and I just wanted to—to let it heal, I didn’t want to have to turn you away, I’m sorry for denying—”

“Don’t,” he manages, strangled and hoarse. Brienne falls silent, though her mouth stays open, as though she plans to interrupt whatever he may say. “Don’t—don’t you _apologize_, don’t you tell me _sorry_ for what they—for—”

“But I know you wanted—”

“Did _you_ want this?” he demands, and suddenly he’s up on his elbow and his good hand is grabbing at her pauldron and he’s squeezing her, almost _shaking_ her, sick and furious and terrified at the thought of Brienne alone in this tent with him and dreading it, feeling his fingers around her wrist and remembering Terren’s claws, but staying to _indulge him_, _to give him what he wanted_, it’s the same kind of bone-deep horror he used to feel when he stood outside Aerys’s chambers and heard the queen screaming and sobbing, when Cersei would show him where Robert left bruises on her wrists while Jaime remained on the other side of the door, _I am a part of this, I am a part of this, I am a part—_

“Jaime.”

A strong hand grasps his chin and suddenly all he can see are her eyes, huge and blue-black like the midnight sky. A tremor goes through him and he thinks he might cry or vomit, he’s not sure which.

“Did I hurt you?” he whispers, and she bites her bottom lip.

“You brought me back into myself,” Brienne tells him. And he wants to believe. He wants to accept that this, a crazed and violent fuck through her armor on the floor of an army tent, was what she needed to erase the memory of that wretch’s hands on her and in her. He wants to have helped, not hurt, he wants it to be like the sapphires and the bear pit and Oathkeeper, when he was there for her when she needed him, but he _hadn’t_ been there this time, they’d done what Locke and his men didn’t even do, and Jaime might have made it worse just now—

“I wanted this.” Her voice is quiet, so quiet, but he feels her shift inside her armor and suddenly her leg goes across both of him, the way that they always do when they sleep in the same bed, the Winterfell way, the safe way. “I wanted you, and I wanted it—this way, and you gave it to me, and I’ve healed before, Jaime, we both have, together. This is just the same.”

It’s hard to snuggle in full armor, but somehow she’s managing it, there on the freezing plank floor, and Jaime didn’t know it was possible to love anything this much. Not even his copy and the other half of his soul, the woman he couldn’t love in full because he hated himself and she was him as much as she was her—no, Brienne is wholly herself, and he loves her to the limits of himself and beyond.

“I’ll kill him,” he says, and he means it. He can tell from her face that she knows he means it. And when she shakes her head, he knows she means it too.

“He knows now what little his life is worth,” she whispers. Then her lips twitch. “But thank you, Ser Jaime.”

Jaime blinks back tears and buries his good hand in her hair and kisses her gently, tasting blood from the constantly reopening split on her lip.

“I love you,” he breathes into her mouth.

Later, when they’ve heaved themselves up onto shaky legs and Jaime has peeled off his terrible sticky breeches and cleaned himself up and then carefully, deliberately, lovingly stripped her out of every piece of armor, removing her protections and walls one by one until she stands before him, huge and warm and utterly soft, trusting him, open to him, after they pile the armor and Oathkeeper in the corner and shuck everything but their undershirts and crawl into the tiny cot that is far too small for two people of their size, thus forcing them to wrap around each other until one flesh belongs to both, after Brienne blows out the candle and Jaime covers them with the blanket and they lie with their heads crowded together on the same pillow, Brienne rubs her nose against Jaime’s and murmurs, “I love you too.”

Jaime holds his commander even closer, and though she can’t wear him out into battle like the steel armor he had made for her, tonight and every night forward he plans to keep her just as safe.

**Author's Note:**

> You know, it's funny, I was rereading some of my other fics and I realized: I HAVE COMPLETELY FORGOTTEN BRAN STARK. I was gonna include him here but then I forgot, and then I noticed he doesn't appear in literally anything I write for this fandom, aside from one offhand mention of him as a baby. He genuinely doesn't exist in my conception of this world. 
> 
> Good riddance. Creepy boring staring bastard. Gimme Jaime and Brienne in domestic bliss and roll that three-eyed fucker down a hill and into the sea.


End file.
